Present Moment Quotes

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.”
― Amit Ray, Om Chanting and Meditation

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it. (21)”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

“I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“so here i sit. a sum of the parts. about a third way down this wonderful path, so to speak. and i've been thinking lately about a friendship that fell apart with time, with distance, and with the misunderstanding of youth. i'm trying not to confuse sadness with regret. not the easiest thing at times. i dont regret that certain things happened. i understand that perhaps i had a choice in the matter, or perhaps i believe in fate. probably not, but so far actions as small as the quickest glance to events as monumental as death have pushed me slowly along to right here, right now. there was no other way to get here. the meandering and erratic path was actually the straightest of lines. take away a handful of angry words, things once thought of as mistakes or regrets, and i'm suddenly a different person with a different history, a different future. that, i would regret. so here i sit. thinking about a person i once called my best friends. a man who might be full of sadness and regret, who might not give a damn, or who might, just might, remember the future and realize that's where its at.”
― Chris Wright

“Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance.”
― Amit Ray, Mindfulness Living in the Moment - Living in the Breath

“Learn to say no to demands, requests, invitations, and activities that leave you with no time for yourself. Until I learned to say no, and mean it, I was always overloaded by stress. You may feel guilty and selfish at first for guarding your down- time, but you’ll soon find that you are a much nicer, more present, more productive person in each instance you do choose to say yes.”
― Holly Mosier

“If it’s over, then don’t let the past screw up the rest of your life.”
― Nicholas Sparks, A Bend in the Road

“It stands to reason that anyone who learns to live well will die well. The skills are the same: being present in the moment, and humble, and brave, and keeping a sense of humor. (361)”
― Victoria Moran, Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

“There is only now. And look! How rich we are in it.”
― Vanna Bonta, Shades Of The World

“Clearly, all fear has an element of resistance and a leaning away from the moment. Its dynamic is not unlike that of strong desire except that fear leans backward into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction. Each lacks presence. (29)”
― Stephen Levine, A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

“The future is greatly different than your life now, the actions that you take must also be greatly different. You cannot do the same thing and get something different.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“The past informs the present. Memory makes the map we carry, no matter how hard we try to erase it.”
― Cara Black, Murder in the Bastille

“And along with indifference to space, there was an even more complete indifference to time. "There seems to be plenty of it", was all I would answer when the investigator asked me to say what I felt about time. Plenty of it, but exactly how much was entirely irrelevant. I could, of course, have looked at my watch but my watch I knew was in another universe. My actual experience had been, was still, of an indefinite duration. Or alternatively, of a perpetual present made up of one continually changing apocalypse.”
― Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell

“Nothing is but what is now”
― Ron Rash, Serena

“The Expulsion from Paradise is eternal in its principal aspect: this makes it irrevocable, and our living in this world inevitable, but the eternal nature of the process has the effect that not only could we remain forever in Paradise, but that we are currently there, whether we know it or not.”
― Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms

“Don't be so loyal to your mind; the mind is not loyal to You.”
― Bert McCoy

“Chronocanine Envy:
Sadness experienced when one realized that, unlike one's dog, one cannot live only in the present tense. As Kierkegaard said, "Life must be lived forward.”
― Douglas Coupland

“The undiscovered is not far away. It’s not something to be found eventually. It is contained within what is right in front of us. The essence of reality is being born right now. It has never existed before. Reality is constant creation and destruction, and in this constant change is something unborn and undying, something that cannot be approached through the known or the past. It isn’t seen through striving to become something based on ideals stemming from former experiences. It comes to that which is being, not striving. In this state of being in the moment, without the known, without knowing at all, with neither past nor future, is a space that is not filled with time. And in this space, the undiscovered and ever-changing moment exists—a moment containing all possibilities, the totality of existence, absolute reality. Reality is now, and in the now, we can experience the true nature of the universe and the universal mind.”
― H.E. Davey

“This I say is the present moment; this is the first day of the summer holidays. This is part of the emerging monster to whom we are attached.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“The only true thing is what's in front of you right now.”
― Ramona Ausubel, No One Is Here Except All of Us

“Living in the present moment means living according to truth and principle (but not according to hard rigid dogma) flexibly applied in the particular way required by the immediate situation in which you are. Such a way of living leaves you free, not ruled tyrannically by imposed regulations which may not at all suit the particular case.”
― Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of Paul Brunton

“Accept the past as the past and realize that each new day you are a new person who doesn’t need to carry old baggage into the new day with you. It’s amazing how many people ruin the beauty of today with the sorrows of yesterday. Yesterday doesn’t exist anymore! For example, if ever I feel foolish or guilty about something I’ve done, I learn from it and attempt to do better the next time. Shame or guilt serves no one. Such feelings actually keep us down, often lowering the vibrations of those around us, as well. Living in the present moment is the recurring baptism of the soul, forever purifying every new day with a new you.”
― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace

“Your words, thoughts, intentions and actions today are your best hope, comfort, building blocks and insurance for tomorrow. But it is now alone that is guaranteed – tomorrow is a dream, a maybe a potential gift. It’s now - not tomorrow - where happiness and fulfilment live...awaiting your discovery. It’s all this that will make each extra day that may arrive extra special and rich.”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

“Bravery is the choice to show up and listen to another person, be it a loved one or perceived foe, even when it is uncomfortable, painful, or the last thing you want to do.”
― Alaric Hutchinson

“You have to focus on the here and now. The future will work out itself.”
― Soulla Christodoulou, Broken Pieces of Tomorrow: Strong women don't give up...They find a way through tears and thrills to love again...

“Focusing on what we have, instead of what we don’t, keeps us in the present moment.”
― Melissa Heisler, From Type A to Type Me: How to Stop "Doing" Life and Start Living It

“Magic doesn't sweep you away; it gathers you up into the body of the present moment so thoroughly that all your explanations fall away: the ordinary, in all its plain and simple outrageousness, begins to shine -- to become luminously, impossibly so. Every facet of the world is awake, and you within it.”
― David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology